Happy Holidays......

These guys all say "Stop Global Warming" but first, have a Merry Christmas!

Changes...............

A few months ago, I discovered a new and softer palette. I was quite happy with this new direction, and I was making a lot of new work. Then one day - without warning - I went off in a completely new direction…….and I haven’t looked back. No texture, no grid, no rocks…..it was almost as if I was channeling some long, lost part of myself…not completely unfamiliar, but certainly new. The connection I did feel was to my charcoal drawings, which I have always considered some of my most compelling work. I’m using charcoal again, though this time into oil paint. Now the new paintings are flowing. I’m trying to remain “in the zone” and follow this work where it takes me. An artist friend commented that it is a bit like some of my familiar icons got loose and are now floating free in a soft, mysterious space. For now, that’s as far as I want to go with a definition. I am tempted to wax philosophical…..or do my usual psychological analysis… but I think I’ll just go back to painting. Stay tuned.

Taking Stock Mid-Year

My mantra for 2009 has been “Embrace Uncertainty”. When I started this blog in early 2009, I was looking toward cyberspace for marketing and sales opportunities, feeling hopeful that this was the new reality. I was willing to jump in, put my work on the 1000 Markets, Zatista, etc. It’s been an interesting experiment, but it feels to me that things have come full circle – back to more face to face networking and local projects – actually more than before the current financial crisis turned our worlds upside down.

While working on a series of linocuts earlier this year, I wrote something about how I thought one positive outcome from this recession would be that people would want to go back to buying handmade things, rather than more electronics or a new car. That was wishful thinking at the time, but I think it’s actually happening. I can feel the difference in my studio – more people coming in and really appreciating my iconic imagery and the direct experience of seeing and touching original paintings. Wanting to meet and talk to the person who made the art rather than seeing it in a gallery.

My palette has softened this year, and that’s been challenging, too. The imagery is more mysterious again, and it looks more like a code, or the primitive expression of basic life forms.

I have certainly not given up on the internet (or this blog)…. although I finally gave up trying to use Twitter. I do still enjoy Facebook, and I think it can be a fun and effective networking tool. (or a big black hole…..)

Onward to the remainder of 2009….thank you to all who inspire me and support my creative work.

The Zen of Fireflies

These days I find I don't have a lot to write about. I think about a lot of things, yet they seem fleeting and/or trivial. I would rather stand on the back porch and dusk and watch the fireflies. There is a time to be a deep thinker. There is a time to think nothing and just watch something miraculous. For a lot of us, the latter is much harder than the former. Although explaining a miracle can detract from its effect, my curious mind gets the best of me every year and I have to research what makes fireflies glow. So, for those of you who have forgotten (like I do every year....)......
Fireflies have dedicated light organs that are located under their abdomens. They take in oxygen and, inside special cells, combine it with a substance called luciferin to produce light with almost no heat. Firefly light is usually intermittent, and flashes in patterns that are unique to each species (there are more than 200 species!). Each blinking pattern is an optical signal that helps fireflies find potential mates. Scientists are not sure how the insects regulate this process to turn their lights on and off.
So enjoy them while they are here! They don't grace our presence for long each year, and now is the time.

New Painting.........

Negotiating with Memory

This is a picture of my father, Robert Fisher, circa 1926, sawing wood in Indiana. A few weeks ago I went to visit him (he is now 94) in Florida. After years of talking about it, I finally interviewed and recorded him for about 30 minutes. He is a very mellow guy, and his epitaph could read, “What you see is what you get”. Hard as I tried to extract long lost stories and juicy details from the past, he seemed unwilling or unable to relate anything beyond facts.
He has had an incredibly interesting life, yet he is humble and unassuming. The experience got me thinking about the nature of memory: not just why and how we remember, but how our selective memories form a narrative of our lives. Do we all edit ourselves to create the persona of the person we want to be? How do we decide what to leave in, what to take out?

While I was pondering some of these questions, I began to read a book called A Fraction of the Whole by Australian novelist Steve Toltz. It’s a long, idiosyncratic, epic saga that reads kind of like a marriage of Dickens and Vonnegut. I came across this paragraph near the beginning of the book:
“Negotiating with memories isn’t easy: how do I choose between those panting to be told, those still ripening, those already shriveling, and those destined to be mangled by language and come out pulverized?.....in any case, mine’s a damned good story, and it’s true.”

How do we tell our life stories? Is blogging the new storytelling? Sometimes I feel like what I'm blogging about isn't "important" enough. But it's all mine, and it's all true.....in my unique life's narrative.

Calculating Happiness

A new constitution in the remote Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan requires that all government programs – from agriculture to transportation to foreign trade – be judged not by economic benefits but by the happiness they produce. The government has created a Gross National Happiness (G.N.H.) index, which names four pillars of a happy society: economy, culture, the environment and good governance. It then breaks these down into nine domains: psychological well being, ecology, health, education, living stardards, time use, community vitality and good governance. Mathematical formulas have been devised to track and measure happiness. Prime Minister Jigme Thiney sees this approach as a response to “greed, insatiable human greed” that is the root of today’s worldwide economic crisis.

Imagine if this idea catches on in other countries. Unlikely, but wonderful to imagine.

How do you define happiness?

Riverside Cemetery, Asheville

Spring is in full bloom at the historic cemetery in my neighborhood. Along with the dogwoods and azelas, I found two more interesting photo ops:

Kenneth Noland is alive and well (as far as I know) but he has already erected his mausoleum in Riverside Cemetery (he's from Asheville). Kinda creepy. or not.??

This has always been my favorite tombstone at Riverside. These people were obviously huge party monsters. Do you think they dug their own grave as a parting gesture?

I recently went back to Seattle, where I lived from 1994 through 1998. I have always said there is no place more beautiful than Seattle on a clear day. I was fortunate to have good weather for most of my visit. There is something about the light on the water there that is like nowhere else. I’ve seen some amazing light on water – on the Costa Brava of Spain, in Seaside Florida, at Big Sur, on the coast of Turkey…….but Seattle’s light is luminous - it feels like it is full of shimmering water droplets (which is probably is).

It was a wonderful trip - I spent time with good friends; I saw a lot of great art in the galleries; I took a ferry to Bainbridge Island; I saw a play; I ate a lot of good food (cedar planked salmon, yum). Though I enjoyed my time, I couldn’t help but notice an undercurrent of anxiety running through me – the source of it was, I think, a somewhat sinking realization that yes, indeed, I DO live in a small town. I know that “the grass is always greener…” and I’m not saying I want to move back there, but I was humbled by the knowledge that being a somewhat big fish in a small pond is not always conducive to growth. Being in a Big City is kind of like playing a sport with someone who is much more experienced than you are: it forces you to play better.

I just needed to acknowledge my moment of Big City Envy, a condition that sometimes invades my psyche. But now I am back to this “small town with a big footprint”. Glad to be home, trying to be where I am, to put one foot in front of the other and move along.

I Love Good News

It’s about time. I watched the news last night and to my amazement the news was by and large GOOD: ship captain dramatically rescued, Cuban-Americans allowed to visit Cuba; gay and lesbian couples invited to the White House Easter egg roll; the Obamas’ new puppy. Put this together into a children’s book and it would go something like this: Evil pirates overtake a ship carrying big mysterious boxes. The good guys rescue the brave captain, who then decides to quit the container ship business and start taking people, particularly gay couples and dogs, to and from Cuba. And they all lived happily ever after.

Another thing that makes me happy these days is the fact that a lot of smart people are choosing to study teaching over investment banking. What a concept.

And to make me even happier, I found an image of a penguin delivering the news. Now that's happy.

The Art of Healing

Take Your Time

15" x 48"

I recently sold this painting to the Children's Inn at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The Inn provides a homelike residence for more than 1,300 children and their families each year during the time the children are receiving medical treatment for cancer and other serious illnesses. The painting is in a public area, and I am thrilled with the placement. It reminds me of some of the reasons I became an artist: to REACH people, to bring something good into the world, to encourage questioning, to share a unique perspective. These days I worry too much about making a living; sometimes I forget about the bigger picture. Today I am grateful for this opportunity to have my work in a place where it really might "matter".

Getting a Line on Linocuts

Recently I decided to switch gears in the studio and experiment with linocuts. The process is all about negative vs positive space and economy of expression. Simple, direct, black and white…. back to basics. Appropriate for the times. Cutting into a block with the relatively unfamiliar tools is challenging, and sometimes they slip – I have an old scar on my thumb to prove it. Once you cut it away, it’s gone. No painting over it.
I have worked on about twelve so far. I’m planning on making small editions of a few of them. Stay tuned.

Where is Art Going?

This is the title of an article in the March issue of ARTnews. It poses such questions as, how will artists survive? How will the market change? And, on a deeper level, how will creativity be affected? Artists, curators and other Art World people are interviewed, and I find a lot of hope in what they say. For instance, Gary Garrels of SF MOMA says, “We’re going to see a shift toward work that is more psychological and introspective”. This is good, right???

As we artists find the ground shifting beneath our feet, one option is to come up less expensive ways to make art. A woman in the article, Ellen Harvey, is working her way through all the materials she has in her studio. That effort will not only save money, it will no doubt result in many “happy accidents” of creativity.

For me, making more and smaller things seems to be a good option right now. I believe that in these uncertain times, there is a general longing for hand made work. People are consuming less, and my hope is that rather than buy that big new TV and feeding the “big box” store, some might consider buying a piece of local, original art. Something to feed the soul.

I am determined to continue to see the upside of this recession, to trust that in the long run we will build a stronger community. And to do all I can to remain true to myself while working harder every day to be smart, practical, compassionate and, of course, creative.

Rocco Loves a Picnic!

(I never said I wouldn't post an occasional cat photo!)

Making a Living in 2009

My friend Katarina Wong (http://www.innerworkings.net) has started an online discussion about the artist’s relationship to his/her day job. The thing that sparked this inquiry was a NY Times article by Holland Cotter called, “The Boom Is Over: Long Live the Art! “ In the article, Cotter looks at how past down markets have creatively-fueled artists by allowing them a freedom that being tied to the marketplace may not. He writes, “It’s day-job time again in America, and that’s O.K. Artists have always had them — van Gogh the preacher, Pollock the busboy, Henry Darger the janitor — and will again. The trick is to try to make them an energy source, not a chore.”

Wouldn’t THAT be nice – to have a day job that actually fed the creative and contributed to the ones energy level in the studio. Maybe teaching. Artists I know who teach certainly talk about how much they get from teaching, how it keeps their “edge” up, how much they learn from students, etc. But a majority of us who have day jobs are not teaching. When I decided I wanted to ditch the 9 to 5 and get serious about making art, I did what a lot of creative people do: I became a waitress. A fine job for someone in her late 20’s or early 30’s, but not for much longer. After that, I bit the bullet and trained to be a paralegal. This made sense to me since I had once been accepted to law school (though I quickly got over that idea). I landed a great part time job with full benefits (hard to imagine that now). Though I used to complain about working half of every day, a lot of my artist friends were envious of the security I had. I did paralegal work for many years, for four years full time. During those four long years I didn’t do very much art. It felt impossible. I had a studio but eventually gave it up and worked some at home. The irony was,
I could easily afford a studio, but I couldn’t find time to paint.

When I moved to Asheville NC in 1998, I assumed I would find a part time job. Imagine my surprise when I was offered work at one third of the pay I had gotten on the West Coast. Subsequently I found contract work running art shows at gaming/sci fi conventions. I still do this, but it is limited and at this point only involves one show a year. (I had the pleasure ha ha of running three “Star Wars Celebration convention” art shows.) For most of the past ten years, I have made a decent income selling my work. I’m not rich, but I didn’t have to look for other work.

Fast forward to 2009. Like a lot of creative people I know, I am trying to keep my head above water by increasing my online presence, networking, and increasing my visibility in various ways.
I am also painting smaller pieces and making linocuts. These pursuits are good; they do not feel like a compromise. Being creative about being creative is always a good thing, even if it is spurred on by a decrease in sales.

Now to explain the graphic: I have been thinking about what I am good at that not many others are. I have come up with two things: trimming cat toenails and reading Tarot cards. I can see the logo now: a paw holding a card. I joke about this, but I may end up doing one or the other before this recession is over. People are finding solace in their pets, and everyone wants to know what the future holds, so maybe m crazy idea isn’t so crazy. Stay tuned.

Artist Interview with Yours Truly

My friend Constance is featuring an artist monthly on her blog, "Step like a Giant. I am "Miss March", and there is a short interview with me posted there. "Step like a Giant" is always worth reading - Constance writes about art, living simply and activism.

Art for Food Benefit

Art for Food is a benefit being held this weekend. I am one of nine artists exhibiting and selling work. 50% of sales will go to Manna Food Bank in Asheville NC. 50% will go to the artists. It's a win-win! Follow the link for more information. I hope to see many of you Ashevillians at the opening tonight, 6-9pm at the Cotton Mill Studios in the River Arts District.

A Few Words about Lent on Ash Wednesday

The old Teutonic word “Lent” meant simply the Spring season. But like a lot of other things, the Catholics robbed the Pagans and changed its meaning. Some of us who have never been Catholic choose to honor the season by giving something up. The idea is to do without one thing you love for the 40-day period, symbolizing the Lenten season's return to simplicity and purity. It doesn't matter what you give up - chocolate, television, Facebook - as long as the meaning of its absence holds significant value to you. I traditionally chose chocolate, which is actually a lot easily to forgo than a lot of other “significant” things (like March Madness). For me, it’s about mindfulness: when I say no to that Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar, I am reminded to be more present. It’s that simple. And then on Easter I can bite off the heads of all the chocolate bunnies I want.

Drawing Dreams Foundation

Recently I was asked to contribute a painting image to the Drawing Dreams Foundation. This non-profit based in Berkeley CA provides art supplies to children's hospitals Artist-in-Residence

art programs. This is a cause near and dear to my heart, and I was happy to donate an image. In appreciation of their support, donors receive note cards featuring art made by children who participate in these programs - as well as from professional artists, architects, scientists, and other visionaries from around the world. The above Drawing is by a 5 year old named Mateo, and it's title is "Happy Dancer". There are two galleries on the site: Children Helping Children, which displays kids' art and Artists Helping Children, which features donated images. Check it out - these kids' drawings and paintings will take the edge off the chill of a gray February day.

"Embrace Uncertainty"

This has become my mantra for 2009. I spend way too many waking hours worrying about the economy, and I don’t much want to write about it here. I know it’s becoming a cliche, but…..we really are all in this together.

That said, I admit I’ve been lying low and quite distracted. Very happy, however, that green things are starting to stick up from the ground all around me. In general, trying to program my brain to focus on the positive even on days when that is a Sisyphean task (I do like those rocks! stacking them is one thing, but rolling them uphill is another). I honestly believe that with faith and a lot of hard work, we will come out of this stronger. Meanwhile I will continue to tread water, roll rocks uphill, ride the roller coaster, bite the bullet….etc…… and I’ll try to count my blessings as I go.

A more substantive post to follow....

What's up with that Rock??

When people visit my studio, one of the first questions they often have is this:
why do you paint that rock (or is it an egg?)? what does it MEAN??? Anyone who has seen my work knows that I have used that image for years – first as an outline, then as a flat oval, and eventually as a three dimensional form. I think it started out as a cell or an egg, certainly both primary shapes in any time or culture. (Start to look around and you will see this oval shape everywhere in contemporary art.) My usual answer is that it represents a lot of things: life’s origins, mystery (what’s inside?), balance (as it is often teetering), the Self in various situations (up a tree, on a wire, stuck in a crevasse, supporting a pile of other rocks). In any case, I have felt compelled to paint it for years, and it has become almost iconic in my work.

But there is an interesting story about “the rock”…..after a few years of painting it, I went to South India for two weeks with my friend Charu. We went to an ancient holy site on the southeast coast called Mahabalapurim. Among the temples and wall reliefs, sitting up on a hilltop, there it was: “Krishna’s Butterball”, an enormous balancing rock. People see the photo in my studio and assume the rock inspired the paintings, but it’s actually the opposite. The paintings lead me to the rock. Much like in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when the Richard Dreyfuss character is compelled to sculpt Devil’s Tower out of his mashed potatoes. In the movie, other characters mysteriously sketch or paint the form, without knowing why. As the story progresses, it turns out that all of these “possessed” people are led to that location to await the arrival of an alien space craft. Science fiction, perhaps, but in essence maybe not.

Experiences like this make the Magic of art-making real. They allow me to remember why I started doing this in the first place and why I will continue to do it, even as the current world situation makes that more and more challenging.
As I tread water in the stormy economic seas of 2009 (oh, please, sorry for the cliché), I sometimes see that rock off in the distance, and it gives me the strength to stay afloat.

Barack!

Tomorrow is the big day.............there is nothing else left to say except for "HOORAY"!

Catch and Release

(note: this is not a picture of me........I only fish in metaphors.)

Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that the process of making art involves give and take, though I prefer to call it take and give. I accept (take) the gifts I have been given – inspiration, talent, the true desire to be an artist. I make art, then I try to give it back to the world. This is the tricky part as I am often mired in – for lack of a better word – the marketing part of my job. Who is my audience, what venues will best serve me, where can I sell my work? Can one truly “give” ones creative work back to the world in an appropriate way and still make a living? I’d like to think so, but it is always a challenge.

To know that my work moves people, taps into memories, and makes them think in new ways means a lot to me. That’s why I do it. (Which is not to say I don’t appreciate it when people like and/or buy it just for, say, the color.) Once I make a painting and send it out into the world, I can only hope it makes an impression and brings some good mojo into the atmosphere. But that is out of my control – my job first and foremost is to make the art. Yet it is essential to get the work out; creative efforts turned only inward can become a burden. For me, too many paintings stacked against the wall can lead to feeling of stagnation, and can make me feel self-absorbed and somehow psychically stingy.

So I try to “catch and release” – catch the creative energy when it is flowing, then release what I make back into the world so I can catch some more inspiration which will lead me to make more work which I will eventually release back……hopefully, in beneficent and meaningful ways.
(btw, I am always happy to hear about ways in which my work may have enlightened, annoyed, amused or otherwise affected people - so please feel free to let me know. I'm not fishing for compliments here ha ha.)

Onward to 2009

May we all greet the challenges of the New Year with grace and guts and gusto!

Do You Look Like Your Work?

(See how my pointy chin matches those trees???) heh heh
A couple of years ago I was invited to be a juror on a panel to award the Ohio State Arts Council grants to painters. This was an arduous two day process, during which I learned more than I could have imagined – not only about the grant process from the other side of the fence (which in itself was a real eye opener) – but also about looking at art and the assumptions we make when doing so. Once we finally agreed on eight painters (out of an initial 200) to receive the awards, only then were we told their names. There were three of us on the panel, and we discovered that we had subliminally assumed the gender of each of the eight – and we were wrong about five of them. It made me think about the question: do you look like your work?

This question of course leads to other, deeper questions about how and why we as artists develop our particular voices. Can we pinpoint the time when we began to truly “own” our work? When the basic skills we learned in art school began to serve us in developing our own language? When a distinctive shape, line, color or composition that we still use today first appeared?

Some of my painter friends look exactly like their work, but most do not. Of course it is more than looks, it’s personality and world view. And of course these judgments are quite subjective, too.

Do I look like my work? Despite my quip at the beginning of this post, my first answer would be “no” – because in my personal life I tend to be quite moderate. I have a secret fantasy of being a minimalist sculptor. Not likely to happen, but interesting to note. I call myself a “Maximalist”. Everything at once all the time, in a way. An onslaught of color and imagery and a chopped up composition……but my work is about all that: the random interaction of objects, trying to make sense of our own stream of consciousness thinking, extracting the essence, feeling the Gestalt of the moment without necessarily understanding each individual part.
So, do I look like my work? I certainly feel like it.